Joe Root says Virat Kohli playing county cricket won't make any difference

Virat Kohli is set to make his county debut for Surrey.

Virat Kohli will be flying to England to start his county stint with Surrey after the end of IPL 2018. The Indian batting star has a very poor record in the English conditions and he picked county cricket over Test match against Afghanistan to prepare himself for the upcoming tour to England.

India will be playing a five-match Test matches in August this year against England, and Joe Root, England's skipper thinks playing county cricket won't help Kohli much.

“Well, he’s got to play against Yorkshire at Scarborough so that might get him out of nick. Steve Paterson might nibble him out a couple of times!” Root said, who plays for Yorkshire. “It’s out of my control. You see a few guys in county cricket struggling at the start of the year who are fantastic players and it might be different when he comes over.

“Ultimately we all try to play in different conditions. We’ve been going to India on Lions tours for years and played in those conditions. He’s played here before and we’ve just got to make sure we have plans to get him out.”

Kohli’s international team-mates Cheteshwar Pujara and Ishant Sharma are already in England playing for Yorkshire and Sussex respectively.